FRANCE: Current Literature

France's Prix Femina is a literary award (5,000 francs) that was created in 1904 to lend to novels by and about women a prestige formerly denied them: France's top literary honor, the august Prix Goncourt, is reserved for male authors only. Last week, the 17 elderly French women writers who award the Prix Femina found their task too grisly, seemed about ready to leave prize-giving to the menfolk. "Life in today's novel," said one of the judges in an interview, "is twisted to eroticism. For instance, in Le Jeu et I'Enjeu [a...

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